PLO's new attempt to use UNESCO to co-opt Jewish history

This Ma'an report leaves some information out:

Palestinian experts are putting the final touches on Palestine's 2013 submission to the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, which will propose the ancient Bethlehem village of Battir as a heritage site.

The proposal, which outlines historical, natural, and cultural features of the hillside village, will be submitted by mid-February, the PA Ministry of Foreign Affairs official working on UNESCO, Omar Awadallah, told Ma'an.

The committee will vote on whether Battir takes World Heritage status at the June general conference, he said. A Palestinian official delegation will attend the conference.

Battir village, with a population of about 4,500, uses an ancient system of irrigation that has provided fresh water to the community for centuries.

Battir, Battir, sounds so familiar. Oh yes - because its real name is Betar, the last Jewish stronghold in the Bar Kochba revolt.

Archaeologist David Ussishkin points out:

Iron I-II pottery was found in previous surveys. Some Iron IIB-C pottery was found in the fills supporting the wall, including a storage jar handle bearing a two-winged lmlk seal impression. Pottery from the Persian, Hellenistic and Early Roman periods was found in previous surveys, and several Hellenistic coins were recovered in the excavations. It thus appears that Betar was continuously settled since Iron I till the Roman period and that a settlement of some importance existed here during the later part of the Judean Monarchy.

Significantly, wall segments built of ashlars, one of them with ashlars dressed in characteristic Roman-Herodian style, were incorporated in the later fortifications. These remains and the pottery indicate that a settlement of some significance existed here prior to the Second Revolt.

As Diane Muir Appelbaum noted in a post I linked to last year, "the Jewish liberation fighters hastily threw up crude stone fortification walls, incorporating parts of the walls and buildings of the Jewish village."

Elli Fischer in TOI adds:

Jewish memory – as preserved in the Talmudim and Midrashim – recalls Betar as a catastrophe of massive proportion whose implications for the future of Judaism exceeded even that of the destruction of the Temples. The rabbis viewed the fall of Betar, not the Temple, as worthy of adding a blessing to the Grace after Meals – a blessing that sought God in the minor miracles of an exilic existence and not in the divine flourishes of an integral Jewish civilization.

In fact, the Talmud offers an alternative explanation for the fertility of Battir: “For seven years [after the fall of Betar] the gentiles fertilized their vineyards with the blood of Israel without using manure.”

So Battir and its environs are certainly worthy of being marked as a significant site with Jewish as well as world culture. No doubt the ancient terraces are worth preserving. Yet if these hills are to be recognized as a World Heritage Site, they must be acknowledged, first and foremost, for its significance to Jewish history.

Maybe there really are some ancient Arab villages or sites in the boundaries of British Mandate Palestine that deserve UNESCO recognition, but for some reason the ones being nominated by the PLO are always ancient Jewish sites of significance - and they ignore the Jewish component.

As we have seen before, the PLO's strategy of joining UNESCO has nothing to do with culture or education. It is meant to do no less than to co-opt, and delegitimize, the history of Jewish people.

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Arab "researcher" upset that UNESCO doesn't (yet) deny Second Temple

Jordanian newspaper Assabeel quotes an Arab "researcher" who is livid that there are Hebrew signs in Jerusalem pointing out where Second Temple-era sights can be found.

Fakhri Abu Diab is aghast that Israeli authorities have put up signs on archaeological and historical sites "in the northern part of Silwan, just tens of meters from the southern wall of the Al-Aqsa Mosque," - meaning around City of David and close to the Temple Mount.

Abu Diab, who has read a bit too much anti-semitic propaganda, further says that the Israelia are trying to push the idea that the Temple was located near this area. He said the move is "an attempt to falsify history and monuments, and target awareness for future generations and to brainwash visitors and tourists... to erase the truth and the Arab and Muslim nature of these historical places, and rework and rewrite the history of the Hebrew forgers. "

He stressed that the falsification of history and archeology "comes at the hands of the occupation authorities, after Jewish archaeologists have confirmed the fact there is no history of Jews in Jerusalem, despite long years of research and exploration in the corners of the city to prove its Jewishness."

Abu Diab pointed out that "this fraud takes place" right under the nose of the world! He is especially upset at UNESCO, who refuses to deny the fact that a Temple existed in Jerusalem or to condemn Israelis saying that there was.

I would laugh at the idea of UNESCO denying the Temple, but then again UNESCO believes the provable lie that Rachel's Tomb is the "historic Bilal bin Rabah mosque." Similarly, UNESCO has no idea what the Western Wall actually is.

So the idea that UNESCO might one day deny the existence of Jewish Temples in Jerusalem is all too believable. After all, the ultimate goal of the PLO joining UNESCO to begin with was to ban Jews from worshiping in their own holiest sites, and denying their existence is a step in that direction.

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UNESCO decides to fund anti-semitic, terror supporting Gaza university

From Ha'aretz:

Relations between Israel and UNESCO have reached a new low following the organization's inauguration of a Chair in Astronomy, Astrophysics and Space Sciences at the Islamic University of Gaza, which Israel identifies with Hamas.

The inauguration, by UNESCO's Secretary-General Irina Bokova, was made possible after the organization accepted Palestine as its 195th member, several months ago.

Palestine's acceptance caused the United States to cut off its funding to the agency.

After holding heated discussions with UNESCO officials on Wednesday, the Israeli ambassador to the agency, Nimrod Barkan, will submit a formal letter of protest on Thursday.

A senior Foreign Ministry source said the Israeli Embassy to UNESCO received a press release from the organization a few days ago saying UNESCO was sponsoring a chair at the Islamic University of Gaza. The chair is seen as a stamp of approval from the international body, implying recognition in the university's importance as an academic institution.

The move angered Jerusalem, especially because the university has served for years as a political hub for Hamas support. Israeli officials said numerous Hamas engineers have been trained at the university to manufacture explosive charges and rockets.

During Operation Cast Lead, in the winter of 2008-2009, the Israel Air Force bombed one of the university's wings, in which Israel said laboratories for rocket and bomb production were located.

Israel was especially furious that the first Palestinian university UNESCO chose to cooperate with was the IUG, rather than other universities in the Palestinian Authority, such as Al-Quds or Birzeit.

Barkan spoke to officials responsible for the Middle East in UNESCO's secretariat on Wednesday. "This is an institution that assists terror and has been involved in terror in the past," he said. "We don't think it was proper to give a chair with such lack of caution, without even checking the institution first."

A quick perusal of the IUG website shows that it is essentially an arm of Hamas. There are dozens of documents praising Hamas - and none criticizing it. (MOst of them are Word documents, but here's an auto-translated page from a faculty member.)

Moreover, the IUG has numerous papers that espouse pure anti-semitism. I found this (poorly translated) English abstract in an Arabic paper put out by the university:

Quran highlighted the many characteristics of the Jews in order‬‬ ‫‪to warn the world of them and especially the Arab world and Muslim peoples‬‬ ‫‪and leaders, and the research will be remembered most important of these‬‬ ‫‪qualities that have had a negative impact on the formation of ideology and‬‬ ‫‪mentality, the thought of the Jews perverted, it is these qualities disbelief in‬‬ ‫‪Allah and His signs, deception, and hardening of the heart, cunning, and‬‬ ‫‪cunning, treachery, betrayal and bloodshed love of this world and hatred of‬‬ ‫‪death and eating people's wealth unlawfully, those qualities that are reflected‬‬ ‫‪on the behavior of individuals and groups, making them commit the crime of‬‬ ‫‪crimes, what on earth who has not committed, because these people do not‬‬ ‫‪know the meaning of humanity, so this research to reveal those qualities and‬‬
‫‪those evil intentions and reveal their risk the entire world and especially the‬‬ ‫.‪Islamic world and the Arab world and to take heed of these and reconsider‬‬

But don't take my word for it that IUG is a terror front. Listen to what the PA said about it in 2007:

Kidnapped soldier Cpl. Gilad Shalit spent most of his time in captivity imprisoned on the campus of the Islamic University in Gaza, said senior Palestinian sources on Monday.

The Islamic University is under complete Hamas control, with faculty members and students alike all loyal to the organization.

Palestinian officials have labeled the university a "sanctuary for wanted men" and they note that Hamas mastermind Yahya Ayyash fled from the West Bank to Gaza in 1995 and hid in the Islamic University for several months during the time he was being pursued by Israeli forces for his role in numerous suicide bombings in the 90's.

Ayyash and other wanted Hamas members took advantage of the fact that none but Hamas loyalists set foot in the university.

That changed last Thursday when troops from Fatah's Force 17 raided the university campus, confiscating some 2,000 AK-47 assault rifles, hundreds of RPG launchers and massive amounts of ammunition.

Fatah troops also uncovered a tunnel opening leading all the way to the Palestinian Police headquarters in Gaza City. Estimates suggest Hamas had intended to fill the tunnel with explosives and destroy the police building.

Hamas also recruited suicide bombers on the IUG campus.

For UNESCO to specifically choose a Hamas-affiliated, terrorist-hub, anti-semitism spouting university as the first one to be honored after admitting "Palestine" as a member shows exactly how UNESCO has no interest in culture or science, and how much it is now in bed with terrorists and their supporters.

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Amazing - UNESCO to reject PA attempt to slam Israel

From UN Watch on June 10:

Under intense pressure by the PLO and its allies, the upcoming meeting of UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee, to be held in St. Petersburg, Russia, from  June 24 to July 6, is liable to find that the “Birthplace of Jesus: the Church of the Nativity and the Pilgrimage route, Bethlehem” is under urgent danger and worthy of special UN protection, a declaration that could only further inflame the region.

What news reports fail to mention, however, is that the PLO’s submission — its first nomination to the World Heritage List since UNESCO voted to admit “Palestine” as a member in October 2011 — has been completely rejected by the professional body charged with evaluating country applications.

In its submission, the PLO claims that “the Israeli occupation,” which is “hampering the supply of appropriate materials,” creates an “emergency situation” that needs to be addressed by “an emergency measure.”

Yet a comprehensive investigation and report by The International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) – a Paris-based entity that advises the World Heritage Committee on which nominated properties to list — said the very opposite:

“[T]he Church of the Nativity and the Pilgrimage route in Bethlehem, Palestine should not be inscribed on the World Heritage List on an emergency basis. . . ICOMOS does not consider that the conditions required by paragraph 161 of the Operational Guidelines are fully met, concerning damage or serious and specific dangers to the Church of the Nativity that make its condition an emergency that needs to be addressed by the World Heritage Committee with immediate action necessary for the survival of the property.”

ICOMOS also found that, contrary to the Palestinian submission now before the UNESCO committee, the Church of the Nativity was neither “severely damaged,” nor “under imminent threat”.

There was no “immediate action… necessary for the survival of the property”. Despite the Palestinian claims, Israel was not found to be a major obstacle to the preservation of the Church of the Nativity. In fact, the report pointed out that the church’s roof – said to be at greatest risk – was repaired “most recently in 1990, when works were implemented by the Israeli military authorities.”

Accordingly, ICOMOS suggested that the PA  “resubmit the nomination in accordance with normal procedures for nomination.”

Amazingly, though, UNESCO's draft resolution rejects this obvious use of UNESCO for political ends:

The United Nations circulated a draft resolution rejecting a Palestinian bid to list the birthplace of Jesus as an endangered World Heritage site, citing a report by international experts who investigated and dismissed claims that the Church of Nativity was under any specific danger. CLICK HERE FOR UNESCO TEXT.

The draft resolution will be considered by UNESCO’s 21-nation World Heritage Committee at a meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia, later this month. The panel has the power to overturn the expert-drafted text but insiders say that Arab states may not win the required two-thirds majority, noting that Russia, as the host country, may be hesitant to upset an objective evaluation submitted by UN professionals.

“This is the first time in recent memory that a draft resolution circulated by the United Nations — let alone by UNESCO, which recently elected Assad’s Syria to its human rights committee — openly rejected a Palestinian claim or position,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of the Geneva-based UN Watch monitoring group.

“At the UN, whose General Assembly each year adopts more resolutions criticizing Israel than on the rest of the world combined, this is a spectacle as rare as Halley’s Comet.”

Notice, though, that after all the drama of whether UNESCO should accept "Palestine" as a member, it is clear from the PLO's very first official nomination to the World Heritage List is based on naked political ambition to slam Israel and not at all based on facts.

Proving that the Palestinian Arab view of "culture" is a bit at odds with what the word normally means.

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UNESCO has no idea what the Kotel is

From the LA Times:

If your budget is too tight to actually stroll along the banks of the Seine or trek through Jerusalem, Google is now offering a virtual alternative -- digital tours of famous sites across the world.

The World Wonders Project uses the same Street View technology that allows people to virtually navigate their neighborhoods through Google Maps, but the cameras are focused on historic and treasured sites such as Florence, Stonehenge and ancient Kyoto instead. 

Although many of the images are gathered with cars that have a camera mounted on top, more difficult-to-reach spots, or publicly inaccessible sites, have been recorded on a pedestrian “trike” and other devices.

The U.N. cultural agency UNESCO and the World Monuments Fund are partnering with the company to provide information about the treasured spots. 

Here is how this project describes Jerusalem:

As a holy city for Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Jerusalem has always been of great symbolic importance. Among its 220 historic monuments, the Dome of the Rock stands out: built in the 7th century, it is decorated with beautiful geometric and floral motifs. It is recognized by all three religions as the site of Abraham's sacrifice. The Wailing Wall delimits the quarters of the different religious communities, while the Resurrection rotunda in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre houses Christ's tomb.

The Kotel in the 1870s

This description was directly taken from UNESCO.

First of all, no Jew calls the Kotel the "Wailing Wall." That term was made up by Europeans in the 19th century, possibly as a translation from the Arabic "al-Makba," the "place of weeping." Using that term today shows, in its most charitable interpretation, gross ignorance.

Secondly, UNESCO doesn't even know what the Wall is. This description indicates that they think that the "Wailing Wall" is what separates the Jewish, Armenian, Christian and Muslim Quarters of Jerusalem. This description, not surprisingly, minimizes the Jewish attachment to Jerusalem, making it appear that it is derivative of Abraham's sacrifice - the Muslim motif of the Temple Mount - and that there was never a Jewish Temple there nor a Jewish nation centered there.

Other UNESCO documents are hardly better, and UNESCO still refers to the Kotel as "The Wailing Wall" even today.

But this is hardly surprising from an organization that once called Maimonides a Muslim and that refers to Rachel's Tomb by the completely modern, artificial name "Bilal bin Rabah Mosque." 

See also my UNESCO posters here, here and here.

(h/t Daled Amos)

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UNESCO stops funding PalArab kid magazine that thanked Hitler

A followup to this story from Europe-Israel:

A day after a protest from the Simon Wiesenthal Center to UNESCO’s Director-General over a Palestinian youth magazine which published materials exalting Hitler, UNESCO has agreed that it « will not provide any further support to the publication in question. »

Zayzafouna, a magazine which supposedly promotes democracy and tolerance, published an article by a ten-year-old Palestinian girl who said that in her dreams, Hitler told her, “Yes. I killed them [the Jews] so you would all know that they are a nation who spreads destruction all over the world.” The article was brought to the public’s attention by Palestinian Media Watch.

A letter from the office of UNESCO’s Director-General read:

UNESCO’s attention has been drawn to the February 2011 issue of the Palestinian children’s magazine Zayzafouna. This magazine is published by an NGO of the same name under the patronage of the Palestinian National Commission for UNESCO, which is the national body set up by the Palestinian Authority to facilitate its work with the Organization. The February issue features a story written by a 10-year-old girl in which Hitler is quoted by her as stating that he “killed [the Jews] so you would all know that they are a nation who wreak havoc on Earth”. While UNESCO upholds freedom of expression as an integral part of its mandate, the inclusion in this publication of a statement that may be interpreted as an apology of the holocaust is contrary to UNESCO’s constitutional mandate and values. It is totally unacceptable.

UNESCO supported the publication of three issues of the Zayzafouna Magazine six months after the February 2011 issue. The support was provided for these issues following agreement with the editorial board that they would focus on building greater appreciation amongst Palestinians for their heritage and culture. They were to open the way for positive dialogue aimed at overcoming the consequences of the Middle East conflict, and to fight against stereotypes that may be conducive to violence. It was UNESCO’s intention to foster a positive view ofPalestinian heritage based on the values of tolerance and UNESCO’s mandate of building peace in the minds of men and women. This vision guides all of UNESCO’s activities, and we urge all partners to work in this direction.

UNESCO is shocked and dismayed by the content of the February issue, and has requested more detailed information and clarification from the editors of the magazine and to Palestinian Authority.

UNESCO strongly deplores and condemns the reproduction of such inflammatory statements in a magazine associated with UNESCO’s name and mission and will not provide any further support to the publication in question.

The Organization, which is deeply committed to the development and promotion of education about the Holocaust, disassociates itself from any statement that is counter to its founding principles and goals of building tolerance in the full respect for human rights and human dignity.

From what I can tell, UNESCO only funded the magazine for a few issues; the latest issues no longer had its logo.

The last issue of 2010 had a tribute to Yasir Arafat.

The issue beforehand had a story about a child visiting his father in prison, ending off with "I am aware that the enemies are the ones who prevented my father from returning home."

The previous issue to that one was the last one to have the UNESCO logo.

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PalArabs plan to use UNESCO to bar Jews from holy sites

From Karl Vick at the Time magazine blog:

Now that Palestine has been voted into UNESCO, the United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, officials are preparing applications for the organization’s marquee designation: a World Heritage Site. Candidates are abundant. Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity stands atop the cave where believers kneel to kiss the spot, confidently marked by a starburst, said to be where Jesus Christ was born. Jericho, which marked its 10,000th birthday last year, is among the oldest continuously inhabited cities on the planet. And Hebron boasts the final resting place of Abraham, whose covenant with the Almighty led to Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Genesis 23 lays out the details of his grave in Deed Office detail, including the price (30 shekels)[sic - it was 400 shekels - EoZ]  paid for the cave and the adjoining field from Ephron the Hittite. There’s not much about the site that’s in doubt, including what Palestinian officials aim to do with the property if they get control of it — stop Jews from praying there.

The stated reason: The massive stone structure built atop the cave by King Herod, a Jew, and held for a time by Christian Crusaders, has since the 14th century been a Muslim house of worship. The Ibrahimi Mosque has minarets, rugs, washrooms for ablutions and anterooms lined with racks for storing shoes.

“It’s a mosque!” says Khaled Osaily, the mayor of Hebron. “You don’t have to be an architect to see it! Will you allow me to pray in a synagogue or a church?”

And as a practical matter, the vagaries of bureaucratic scheduling means no Palestinian site will be even considered until 2014 by UNESCO, which after all “was created to work for peace,” notes an official speaking from the organization’s Paris headquarters. “You’d be hard pressed to find a person at UNESCO who says, ‘Yes, Christians should be banned from there or Muslims should from here.’”

So why frame the World Heritage application as a bid to restrict the use of a religious site, when the only practical effect will be to create bad feelings? For the same reason Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas, in his September speech to the U.N. General Assembly, evoked the the Holy Land by name-checking Jesus Christ and the Prophet Mohammed but said nothing about the Jews: In a word, spite.

"Spite" is not an accurate description of the reason that they want to ban Jews from the site. It is Islamic supremacism.

Since the 14th century, Muslims banned Jews - and specifically Jews - from worshiping at Judaism's second holiest site. This is not "spite" against Zionism but an expression of Muslim supremacy over Judaism.

And the idea that UNESCO would not allow the site to revert to being Judenrein is not as ridiculous as Karl Vick makes it sound. After all, last year UNESCO declared that the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel's Tomb were "Palestinian:"

The Palestinian sites of al-Haram al-Ibrahimi/Tomb of the Patriarchs in al-Khalil/Hebron and the Bilal bin Rabah Mosque/Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem: the Board voted 44 to one (12 abstentions) to reaffirm that the two sites are an integral part of the occupied Palestinian Territories and that any unilateral action by the Israeli authorities is to be considered a violation of international law, the UNESCO Conventions and the United Nations and Security Council resolutions.

Which means that under UNESCO's rules, Israel's allowing Jews to visit those sites after 1967 would have been considered a unilateral move and violated UNESCO guidelines.

And the idea of banning Jews from their holy sites in Judea and Samaria is mainstream in the Arab world. Here's part of an Arab League note to the UN Commission on Human Rights in 1994:

A statement issued by the Islamic Committee in the middle of the preceding month gave a clear indication of the intensive and repeated Israeli attempts to formulate specific arrangements aimed at imposing control over a number of Islamic mosques, including the Ibrahimi Shrine.

The statement referred to information that had recently been leaked by Israeli sources, to the effect that the occupation authorities were discussing the future supervision of some of those Islamic places of worship, through the establishment of special arrangements under which religious rites could be performed by both Muslims and Jews, after the settlers demanded the right to engage in acts of religious worship, like the Muslims, in a number of mosques, including the Ibrahimi Shrine, Joseph's Tomb at Nablus, Nabi Samwil at Jerusalem and Rachel's Tomb at Bethlehem.

Outrageous that the "settlers" would insist on the right to worship - like the Muslims!

Here we have enshrined the Arab insistence on Muslim supremacism over Judaism, in stark contrast to Israel's attempts to maintain open access by all to Jewish holy sites (except, of course, to its restriction on Jews from praying on the Temple Mount.)

And now we know exactly how the enlightened, moderate and culture-loving Palestinian Arab leaders intend to use their UNESCO membership.

(h/t Honest Reporting)

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UNESCO elects Syria to "human rights" committees

From UN Watch:

UNESCO’s executive board, which includes the US, France, the UK and other Western democracies, unanimously elected Syria to a pair of committees – one dealing directly with human rights issues – even as the Bashar al-Assad regime maintains its campaign of violence against its own citizens.

The Arab group at UNESCO nominated Syria for the spots, and though the 58-member board approved the pick by consensus on Nov. 11, the agency has not yet posted the results on its website.

Syria’s election came just a day before the League of Arab States moved to suspend Syrian membership of that body.

“The Arab League’s suspension of Syria is stripped of any meaning when its member states elevate Syria to UN human rights committes,” says Hillel Neuer, executive director of the Geneva-based monitoring group UN Watch.

“It’s shameful for the UN's prime agency on science, culture and education to take a country that is shooting its own people and empower it to decide human rights issues on a global scale. Regrettably, the pressure to bow to consensus – part of the go-along-to-get-along tradition at the UN – can drag everyone down to the will of the lowest common denominator.”

Neuer highlights that the executive board’s decision should not be all that surprising, given the body “recently welcomed serial human rights abusers as new members, like Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Pakistan and Russia.” Syria was already on the executive board, noted Neuer, "as were other countries with poor human rights records, including Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Belarus, China, Vietnam and Algeria."

The UN says Syria’s crackdown on opposition protests has left more than 3,500 people dead over the past eight months.

Syria will serve a second two-year term on the 30-member Committee on Conventions and Recommendations, which examines “communications … relating to the exercise of human rights,” according to UNESCO’s Web site. Syria also joins the 23-member Committee on International Non-Governmental Organizations, which is mandated to encourage approved activist groups to help further UNESCO’s overall goals.

In a bid to insulate UNESCO’s administration from criticism, the agency’s executive director, Irina Bokova, insists her hands were tied. She has even broken with protocol in commenting that the executive board’s choice was not a good one.

“The director-general and secretariat are bound by the decisions of member states and are not supposed to comment on them,” said Sue Williams, UNESCO chief spokesperson.

“Yet given the developments in Syria, the director-general does not see how this country can contribute to the work of the committees.”

Israeli media had the story last week but the UNESCO website had nothing on it. And it still doesn't.

I've seen the same lack of transparency at UNRWA where it ignores many Palestinian Arab strikes and threats on its website.

(h/t many but Ian for reminding me....)

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UNESCO complains about an Israeli editorial cartoon

UNESCO has made a formal complaint to Israel - about an editorial cartoon in Ha'aretz!

Israel's ambassador to UNESCO didn't know whether to laugh or cry when a senior official at the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization called him in for a tongue-lashing on Wednesday. The reason? A cartoon published in Haaretz.

The November 4 cartoon, a riff on the government's anger at UNESCO's decision to accept Palestine as a full member, showed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak sending an air force squadron to attack Iran, with Netanyahu ordering, "And on your way back, you're gonna hit the UNESCO office in Ramallah!"

When he met with Eric Falt, UNESCO's assistant director general for external relations and public information, Ambassador Nimrod Barkan was stunned to be handed a copy of this cartoon and an official letter of protest from UNESCO's director general, Irina Bokova. Falt told Barkan the cartoon constituted incitement.

"A cartoon like this endangers the lives of unarmed diplomats, and you have an obligation to protect them," Falt said, according to an Israeli source. "We understand that there is freedom of the press in Israel, but the government must prevent attacks on UNESCO."

Barkan pointed out that the government has no control over editorial cartoons printed in the papers. "Ask yourselves what you did to make a moderate paper with a deeply internationalist bent publish such a cartoon," he suggested. "Perhaps the problem is with you."

After Barkan reported the conversation to the Foreign Ministry, it cabled back: "What exactly does UNESCO want of us - to send our fine boys to protect UNESCO's staff, or to shut down the paper? It seems your work environment is getting more and more reminiscent of 'Animal Farm.'"

I could be wrong, but I interpreted the cartoon as being against striking Iran by pointing out the absurdity of an airstrike on UNESCO "on the way back" - meaning it is the exact opposite of incitement. Or perhaps the cartoonist was against what he felt was Israel's disproportionate reaction to UNESCO accepting "Palestine" as a member.

Either way, it appears that the Islamic-dominated UNESCO is teaching that organization how to properly react to cartoons that they find distasteful.

Another possibility is that now that UNESCO is now including Hamas as part of the "unity"  Palestinian Arab delegation, perhaps they think that since at least one of their members has no problem attacking UN facilities when it serves their purposes, all of their members must be the same.

You know, equality.

Or maybe now that UNESCO is hurting financially,they just want some free security provided by Israel.

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Canada stops new funding for UNESCO

From the Montreal Gazette:

In the wake of a vote by UNESCO to allow Palestinians a seat at the table, Canada's federal government said it will not be giving any additional money to the UN body.

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird told reporters Tuesday the government would not be offering further "voluntary" payments to the United Nations' cultural arm.

Baird said Canada would continue its funding at current levels, but will not add new payments.

Canada provides almost $12 million annually to UNESCO.

"Under no circumstances will Canada cover the budgeting shortfall as a result of this decision and Canada has decided to freeze all further voluntary contributions to UNESCO," Baird said.

The shortfall Baird referred to is in reference to U.S. law that immediately cuts off funding to any UN body that accepts Palestinians as full members. U.S. money makes up about 22 per cent of UNESCO's annual budget.

The minister said the government needed to send a message to UNESCO that it was not happy with the body's decision to include the Palestinians.

"The bottom line is there's going to be a large hole in UNESCO's budget because of the American law which withdraws funding and people at UNESCO should not look to Canada to fill that budget hole," he said. "They'll have to go to the countries who supported this resolution, that caused this budget loophole."

It is sort of a symbolic move but, hey, so is the entire idea that of the PLO being a member of UNESCO to begin with.

By the way, here is a list of the 14 countries that voted "no" for "Palestine" to be a member of UNESCO:

Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, Germany, Israel, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Palau, Panama, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Sweden, US, Vanuatu.

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An example of how "Palestine" will act at UNESCO

Here is the cover of Palestinian Arab textbook "National Education, Grade 2", published in 2001:

Let's look a little closer at the stamp pictured in the lower right:

Now compare it with the actual stamp it was taken from:

What is missing in the textbook image?

Why, it is the Hebrew part of the British Mandate stamp that says "Palestine (Eretz Yisroel)"!


Palestinian Arabs always accuse Israel of trying to erase Arab and Muslim culture, but as usual it is just projection for what they do, day in and day out, in trying to erase any vestiges of Jewish presence from the historic Land of Israel - from even as recently as 70 years ago.

Besides the outrageous airbrushing of history that this represents, more subtly, the textbook takes an item from the time of British rule and pretends that it somehow represents a historic nation of Palestine that never existed.

(In fact, other stamps in the same series depicted Jewish and Christian holy sites, as the British tried to be even-handed when they issued stamps.)

The preamble for the UNESCO constitution declares:

...[T]he States Parties to this Constitution, believing in full and equal opportunities for education for all, in the unrestricted pursuit of objective truth, and in the free exchange of ideas and knowledge, are agreed and determined to develop and to increase the means of communication between their peoples and to employ these means for the purposes of mutual understanding and a truer and more perfect knowledge of each other's lives.

This single example shows that Palestinian Arabs have zero interest in the noble original goals of UNESCO,and instead are interested in furthering their own selfish agenda at the expense of the truth, of other people and other cultures.

(photos from IMPACT-SE and miff.no, h/t JPost and Ian)

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Another UNESCO poster, and a discussion of culture

A blog-friend was offended by my last poster (which said "Palestinian culture.") It led to a spirited debate on Twitter over whether it is fair, or bigoted, to say that "Palestinian culture" can be symbolized by a bus bomber.

(Others wildly misinterpreted the poster as saying I was calling all Palestinian Arabs suicide bombers, which is ridiculous.)

My contention is that it was an accurate caption, although posters force me to be more brief (and therefore open to misinterpretation.) I regard posters a a form of political cartoon, where a point is often made by using exaggeration.

Nevertheless, there wasn't much exaggeration here.

One of Wikipedia's definitions of culture is:

The set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution, organization, or group

The word "culture" perfectly describes the Palestinian Arab attitude of support towards "resistance." And, yes, that means terrorism. From the political leaders on down, you will not find many significant Palestinian Arab voices who are actively against political violence for moral reasons - only for pragmatic reasons.

How many examples have I given over the years, of schools and camps and town squares named for terrorists? Not terrorists who turned into political leaders, but people who were nothing but terrorists. If Palestinian Arab culture found these people abhorrent, where are the op-eds and protests against them?

Samir Kuntar is a hero among Palestinian Arabs If there are any who find him to be a monster, they certainly aren't making themselves heard.

And poll after poll has shown that Palestinian Arabs support terrorism. The number has gone down in recent years when the questions were asked in the abstract, but when specific terror attacks were mentioned (like the massacre at Mercaz HaRav) the percentages were overwhelmingly pro-terror.

Just last week, Mahmoud Abbas said that Hamas' kidnapping of Gilad Shalit - not technically an act of terrorism, but a violation of multiple Geneva Conventions - was a "good thing," and he agreed that armed "resistance" was a necessity for negotiations. How many Palestinian Arabs would disagree with this?

It is a culture that glorifies terror attacks, where masked terrorists are cheered, where killers are feted, where no distinction is made between prisoners who have done no violent crime and those who have been instrumental in mass murder - they are all heroes.

No doubt there are other facets to Palestinian Arab culture. They have plays, art, crafts, clothing and books that have nothing to do with terrorism. But to deny that glorifying terror is part of today's Palestinian Arab culture is to deny reality.

Wishful thinking will not make this ugly truth go away. It is a serious problem in today's Palestinian Arab society, and pointing out that PalArabs are friendly when you visit Ramallah does not lessen the immensity of the problem.

And I think there is a solution. But that is for another post.

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"Palestine" at UNESCO: The Poster

Well, they didn't invent falafel...

UPDATE: If you want to see my exhaustive defense of why this poster is accurate, see this and this.

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What will happen next with UNESCO?

As was obvious, UNESCO voted to admit a fictitious state:

Palestinians won a crucial vote to enter UNESCO as a full member on Monday, scoring a symbolic victory in their battle for statehood ahead of a similar vote at the UN General Assembly in New York.

"The general assembly decides to admit Palestine as a member of UNESCO," said the resolution adopted by 107 countries, with 14 voting against and 52 abstaining.

"This vote will help erase a tiny part of the injustice done to the Palestinian people," Palestinian foreign minister Riyad al-Malki told the assembly as the vote took place.

France, which had voiced serious doubts about the motion, approved it along with almost all Arab, African, Latin American and Asian nations, including China and India.

Israel, the United States, Canada, Australia and Germany voted against, while Japan and Britain abstained.

The United States and Israel are set now to withdraw their funding from the UN cultural body, while other UN agencies may have to debate the thorny issue.

So will US funds be stopped? HuffPo wrote up what looks like a comprehensive description of the legal issues involved.

Back in the earliest days of the peace process, when Congress was not entirely behind White House efforts related to Madrid (and subsequently Oslo), Congress passed a number of pieces of legislation intended to block normalization of Palestinian relations and activities in the international community. These included the following provision of law -- which notably does not include authority for the president to waive the requirements of the law, even in cases where vital U.S. national security interests are at stake.

22 USC 287e as amended by PL 101-246

MEMBERSHIP OF THE PALESTINE LIBERATION ORGANIZATION IN UNITED NATIONS
AGENCIES.

(a) PROHIBITION- No funds authorized to be appropriated by this Act or any other Act shall be available for the United Nations or any specialized agency thereof which accords the Palestine Liberation Organization the same standing as member states.

(b) TRANSFER OR REPROGRAMMING- Funds subject to the prohibition contained in subsection (a) which would be available for the United Nations or any specialized agency thereof (but for that prohibition) are authorized to remain available until expended and may be reprogrammed or transferred to any other account of the Department of State or the Agency for International Development to carry out the general purposes for which such funds were authorized.

A few observations are in order.

First, if UNESCO were to upgrade the PLO's status, but not to a point that gave the PLO equal status (in terms of rights/privileges) to member states, 22 USC 287e would not apply.

Second, even if UNESCO were to upgrade the PLO's status to the same as a member State, Congress is not simply the helpless victim of a law passed 21 years ago during a much different era. If members of 112th Congress wanted to, they could pass new legislation to amend this 22 USC 287e to avoid a cut-off in funds.

Third, the chances of the 112th Congress amending 22 USC 287e to avoid a crisis at the UN are low to non-existent, despite the fact that cutting off funding to UNESCO and other UN agencies would clearly be detrimental to U.S. interests.

...Fifth, even if UNESCO and the Palestinians were to come to some agreement on an upgrade of status short of a status comparable to a member state (thus avoiding sanctions under 22 USC 287e), Congress would likely act to strengthen U.S. law to ensure that even in such a case, U.S. sanctions would apply....

And finally, it should be emphasized that the U.S. funding for UNESCO that is at issue here includes funding from the United States' assessed contributions to the UN, as opposed to voluntary contributions to UNESCO. This means that if Congress and the White House determine that under the current (or some future) law, funding to UNESCO (or later on WIPO, or the IAEA) must be cut off due to that organization's treatment of the Palestinians, the U.S. will not only be removing itself from participation in a key international body, but will be in violation of its treaty obligations with respect to UN funding.

I cannot imagine that the White House will not find a way around this, but it is a stickier situation than it first appeared.

UPDATE: The US announced it stopped funding UNESCO:

The United States said on Monday it had stopped funding UNESCO, the UN cultural agency, following its vote to grant the Palestinians full membership.

US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters the United States had no choice but to halt funding because of longstanding US law, saying Washington would not make a planned $60 million transfer that was due in November. (Reuters)

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How the PalArabs will use UNESCO to hurt Israel

From YNet:

The Palestinians will seek World Heritage status for the birthplace of Jesus once the UN cultural agency admits them as a full member, and will then nominate other sites in the West Bank for the same standing, an official said.

Hamdan Taha, a Palestinian Authority minister who deals with antiquities and culture, said UNESCO membership was the Palestinians' natural right. He described the objections of some governments to the move, including the United States, as "regrettable."

UNESCO's board decided last week to let member states vote on a Palestinian application for full membership, seen as part of a Palestinian drive opposed by Israel and the United States for recognition as a state in the UN system.

"UNESCO membership carries a message of justice and rights. Why must the Palestinians be left outside the international system?" Taha said. "I see it as crowning long efforts over the past 20 years."

He said that after gaining full UNESCO membership, the Palestinians will revive their bid to secure World Heritage status for Bethlehem and its Church of Nativity, revered as the birthplace of Jesus. The nomination was rejected this year because the Palestinians were not a full UNESCO member.

"This is a simple example of how Palestine has not been able to preserve its cultural heritage through the tools granted to every state in the world," Taha said.

"We will call on the World Heritage Committee to activate this application," said Taha. "We expect that after Bethlehem, other sites will follow."

Aside from Bethlehem, the Palestinian Authority has listed ancient pilgrimage routes and the West Bank towns of Nablus and Hebron among 20 cultural and natural heritage sites which Taha said could also be nominated as World Heritage Sites.

Taha described the Palestinians' motives as "purely cultural": "This will allow Palestine to actively participate in protecting cultural heritage in the Palestinian territories," he said

The vote on Palestinian membership is expected at UNESCO's General Conference, which runs from October 25 to November 10. The Palestinians have had observer status at UNESCO since 1974.

Declaring all of Bethlehem to be a UNESCO site would stop Israel from being able to maintain or protect Rachel's Tomb.

Similarly, declaring Hebron and Nablus (Shechem) to be UNESCO sites would impact Jewish access to the Cave of the Patriarchs and the Tomb of Joseph.

Perhaps most pernicious is the threat to declare "ancient pilgrimage routes" to be UNESCO sites as well. These routes, which are not well known, would mean that some (or all) roads to Jerusalem and Bethlehem would become World Heritage Sites. (Other pilgrimage sites were to Nazareth and the Kinneret.)

And these routes are not only within areas controlled, annexed or disputed by Israel but even areas within Israel itself. For example, according to one source, here is the map of the Templar Trail to Jerusalem:

If parts of these routes are within "Palestine" then it hardly makes sense for UNESCO to stop at the Green Line.

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UNESCO tersely admits calling Maimonides a Muslim

I reported last month that a UNESCO document has put Maimonides in a recent list of Muslim scholars published in December 2010.

The Algemeiner contacted UNESCO about this:

When contacted directly by the Algemeiner for comment a UNESCO spokesperson replied, “UNESCO acknowledges that there was indeed an important and regrettable error in the chapter devoted to Arab States in the UNESCO Science Report published in 2006, which refers to Maimonides as a Muslim scholar,” they said. “Despite the vigile [sic] of our editors, errors unfortunately do occasionally occur.”

The representative declined to comment further.

That's not quite an apology.

While the acknowledgement is welcome, in the context of UNESCO declaring Rachel's Tomb to be a "historic mosque" - a provable lie - and other anti-Israel biased statements it has made recently, one wonders if a mistake like this is more than just a mistake.

UNESCO must have known how offensive this Maimonides gaffe was, so to shrug it off as "just one of those things" hardly seems an adequate response.

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UNESCO's Islamicization of Maimonides

YNet has a damning article by Giulio Meotti about UNESCO that makes a very good case that the agency is actively engaging in a fight against Israel, and even against Jewish culture and history - especially if that history happened to occur on the "wrong side" of an imaginary green line.

The Arabs find it difficult to convincingly portray Israel as usurper of the land as long as the world believes there is a huge connection between the people of the Bible and the land of the Bible. UNESCO is denying this connection by depicting Jewish history in the Middle East as no more than an insignificant, brief sojourn by arrogant colonizers.

UNESCO appears to deny that the Jewish people has laid its roots in Israel more than 4,000 years ago, or that 1,000 years before Christ, King David made Jerusalem the Jewish city par excellence, never entirely abandoned even in times of deadly persecution.

The City of David in Jerusalem, a major target of UNESCO’s anti-Jewish fury, is now the hottest open archaeological site in the world, with biblical artifacts, ancient burial spots and royal seals. There, UNESCO is using archeology to bash Israel and treats Israeli archeologists as nationalistic martinets.

In recent years, UNESCO increased its collaboration with ISESCO, the cultural body of the Organization of the Islamic Conference. According to ISESCO’s propaganda, the Biblical story and the Jewish temples are only fiction, Jewish monuments are Islamic treasures stolen by the Zionists, and Israeli archeological works are criminal acts against Muslims.

UNESCO’s ideology portrays the Jews as no more than invading colonizers, while the Muslims who invaded the country and ravaged it in the Seventh Century are, by some inexplicable leap, the descendants of the so called "indigenous Canaanites."

In 2010, UNESCO decided that Rachel’s Tomb and Hebron’s Cave of the Patriarchs are “Muslim mosques.” Western countries didn't raise any protest. UNESCO never mentioned that in addition to the famous Tomb of the biblical Patriarchs, Hebron contains also the tomb of the first judge (Otniel Ben Kenaz), the tomb of generals and confidants to Saul and David and the tombs of Ruth and Jesse, David’s great-grandmother and father. There is also no word by UNESCO about the fact that Rachel’s tomb is unanimously revered as the burial site of one of the Bible’s great women, the wife of Jacob, the Jewish blessed mother.

During the Second Intifada, UNESCO condemned Israel for “the destruction and damage caused to the cultural heritage in the Palestinian territories” as “a crime against the common cultural heritage of humanity.” However, UNESCO remained silent when a Palestinian mob destroyed Joseph’s tomb, a major Jewish religious shrine, and built a mosque on the site.

Upon the outbreak of the Second Intifada, Palestinian terrorists also attacked Rachel’s tomb, and for 41 days Jews were prevented from visiting the compound. UNESCO never condemned it. Recently, dozens of graves at the Mount of Olives cemetery in Jerusalem were vandalized, the latest in a series of attacks on Judaism’s oldest cemetery, where Jews have been buried since biblical times. Again, UNESCO remained silent.

This one part of the article was stunning to me:

On a final note, a recent UNESCO report on science, Jewish physician and theologian Maimonides is classified as a Muslim named “Moussa ben Maimoun.” So the Rambam - for Rabbi Moshe Ben Maimon – has been forced to “convert” to Islam by the UN’s revisionist historians.

During the Middle Ages, the French Inquisition confiscated and burned Maimonides's books. From the elegant Parisian boulevards, UNESCO’s inquisitors are now following the same dreadful solution of rendering history and the Holy Land "Judenrein."

I asked Meotti for the document where UNESCO calls Maimonides (the Rambam) a Muslim, and after a bit of searching we found it. It was in the French version of a December 2010 report on science in the Arab world by Adnan Badran:

Une fois Tolède reprise aux Maures par les croisés en 1085, les savants européens y affluèrent afin de traduire les anciens textes classiques du grec (que l’Europe avait oubliés) vers l’arabe et l’hébreu, puis le latin, rendant ce la première partie du Moyen Âge européen (1100-1543), les noms de quelques savants européens apparaissaient dans la littérature scientifique à côté d’un grand nombre de savants musulmans, parmi lesquels Ibn Rushd (Averroès), Moussa ibn Maïmoun (Maïmonide), Tousi et Ibn Nafis.

After the recovery of Toledo from the Moors by the Crusaders in 1085, European scholars flocked there to translate the ancient classical texts from the Greek (which Europe had forgotten) to Arabic and Hebrew and Latin, making it the first part of the European Middle Ages (1100-1543), the names of some European scholars appeared in scientific literature next to a large number of Muslim scholars, including Ibn Rushd (Averroes), Maimouna Ibn Moussa (Maimonides), Tousi and Ibn Nafis.

This is in marked contrast to how UNESCO used to act. In 1986, it organized a roundtable to celebrate the 850th anniversary of Maimonides' birth, and dedicated an entire issue of its cultural magazine to Maimonides and Averroes that same year where his Jewish roots are emphasized. In that issue they mention that he is known as The Rambam and they say his name was Moses ben Maymun.

That began to change as UNESCO started de-emphasizing his Judaism. In their description of Cordoba, for example, he is referred to as "Musa-ibn-Maymun."

And now - he is a Muslim.

This isn't the usual anti-Zionism that we come to expect from the UN. This is a consistent pattern of the denial of Jewish history and culture. In other words - this is UN-sanctioned anti-semitism.

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UNESCO shows its anti-Israel bias

From YNet:

UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee decided to accept a petition by Jordan and issued an official censure of Israel over the archeological excavations near the Mughrabi Gate in the Jerusalem's Old City.

UNESCO's censure calls for the immediate cessation of all renovation work done on the Mughrabi Gate bridge, which leads from the Western Wall plaza in Jerusalem to the to the al-Aqsa Mosque and Temple Mount.

Israel and Jordan had previously agreed that the existing bridge must be razed for safety reasons. Israel plans to build a new bridge on the site.

Jordan's petition was also signed by Egypt, Iraq and Bahrain. The decision was carried with a unanimous vote by UNESCO 21-member nations. Australia, Switzerland, Brazil and Mexico voiced their reservations over the strong anti-Israel language used in the resolution, but did not oppose it in the vote.

The four, along with Sweden and Estonia asked the committee to defer its debate on Jordan's petition, but were denied.

Israel's ambassador to UNESCO Nimrod Barkan, which has an observer's status, attempted to address the committee, but Egypt objected and he was denied the floor.

Jerusalem sources told the newspaper Israel was "shocked" and "furious" over Jordan's scheme. "The Jordanians lied to us and to the Americans in an unbelievable way… The most astonishing thing is they don't even mention the agreement between Israel and Jordan," Barkan said.

As far as I can tell, UNESCO has never said a word in relation to the Waqf's wanton destruction of huge amounts of priceless archaeological relics on the Temple Mount.

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UNESCO pushes a lie

From the UNESCO site:

• The Palestinian sites of al-Haram al-Ibrahimi/Tomb of the Patriarchs in al-Khalil/Hebron and the Bilal bin Rabah Mosque/Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem: the Board voted 44 to one (12 abstentions) to reaffirm that the two sites are an integral part of the occupied Palestinian Territories and that any unilateral action by the Israeli authorities is to be considered a violation of international law, the UNESCO Conventions and the United Nations and Security Council resolutions.

Back in March, UNESCO went a little further and referred to "the historic Bilal Bin Rabah Mosque," helpfully putting "Rachel's Tomb" in parentheses.

The only problem is that it is completely false.

As I documented in some detail last year, the name "Bilal Bin Rabah Mosque" was never used before the mid-1990s - even by Arabs! Calling it "the historic Bilal Bin Rabah mosque" is, simply, a lie, and an easily proven one.

For a good example of this, here is a UN document from 1994 where the Arab League is describing Israeli "violations of human rights in the territories:"

[T]he settlers demanded the right to engage in acts of religious worship, like the Muslims, in a number of mosques, including the Ibrahimi Shrine, Joseph's Tomb at Nablus, Nabi Samwil at Jerusalem and Rachel's Tomb at Bethlehem.

Even the Arab League called it Rachel's Tomb a mere sixteen years ago! The only Arabic name for the site has historically been Qubbat Rukhail, or "The Dome of Rachel."

UNESCO is an institution whose entire purpose is meant to foster co-existence based on education, the sciences, and culture. By saying that an undisputed Jewish holy site is primarily a mosque, and only parenthetically a Jewish site, shows its utter disregard for those three fields represented in its name. It is pushing a lie that was created from whole cloth by Muslims to eliminate Jewish history and culture.

It is a travesty of UNESCO's goals to rewrite history in the service of those who want to eradicate Jewish culture from the Middle East.

See also JPost on Netanyahu's reaction.

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